


Merely Players

by orphan_account



Category: Castle
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Family, Gen, cops and robbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem is that life's not a movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merely Players

**Author's Note:**

> A Cops and Robbers fic. Title from Shakespeare.
> 
> Written for callsign_buzz for the birthday week gift exchange at Castleland. I wrote this very quickly to get it done in time for the deadline, so apologies for any errors.

_All the world's a stage…_

 

Unlike most people who use that particular quotation, Martha Rodgers can recite the entire monologue, complete with appropriate hand gestures, and specify exactly where it occurs in _As You Like It_.  

 

As an actress, she knows the truth of Shakespeare's words.  Life is like a play, or a movie, full of action and adventure and love.  Little dramas pass as episodes in a soap opera, interspersed with the minutiae that is never seen on screen, presumably occurring during the commercial breaks when viewers are taking a bathroom break.  

 

If life is a play, then Martha is beyond the intermission now.  She knew that the movie was more than halfway through, but she never thought that she's reach this point at the same time as her son.  

 

She knows that Richard has been in danger on many occasions since he started shadowing Kate Beckett.  She's watched him come home weary and worn down, or exhilarated and riding on the kind of high that only comes from cheating death.  She's seen him creep into the loft late at night and silently crack open the door to Alexis's room so that he can watch her sleep.  She's seen him rush through the front door and straight to his study where he'll type for hours, the burning fire of inspiration causing words to pour from his fingertips.  

 

She worries, of course she does, but she can cope when the danger occurs off-screen.  There are the occasional exceptions (watching him try to block a bullet with his body at Roy Montgomery's funeral springs immediately to mind), but for the most part she only hears about the action and adventure second-hand, when the danger has passed.  She can write off anything too distressing to Richard's tendency to exaggerate (she takes responsibility for that dramatic flair that sells so many books).  

 

It's different when she's the co-star and he's determined to play the hero.  It's different when the drama and the fear are real and she's stuck centre-screen with her son, surrounded by mad men with masks and guns.  

 

The problem is that life is not a movie.  There are no rules, no tropes and cliches to be followed, revealing to an omnipotent audience who will live and who will die.  In a movie, pushing yourself forward into the hero's role is a surefire way to survive till the closing credits.  It's the extras, the background characters who find themselves killed in the crossfire or used as an example.  In life, heroes rarely get a happy ending.  Martha is positive that the only way to survive this situation is to act like a hostage, meek and mild and willing to do whatever their captors demand.  She wishes that Richard would just melt into the background, just another extra without a speaking role.  

 

The problem is that her son has never been satisfied as anything less than the leading man.  She takes full responsibility for his love of the attention granted to the player of the starring role, but it's more than that.  Richard genuinely wants to help people.  She's not the perfect mother and he's not the perfect son, but somehow, despite her shortcomings, Martha raised a good man.  When he met Kate Beckett he became better still, and Martha both blesses and curses the detective for that influence.  

 

Martha is terrified, but she's never been more proud.  Her son takes charge of the hostages, reassuring them and planning ways to keep them all alive.  He gathers pertinent information and does his best to get it to Beckett and the cops outside.  

 

Martha wants him to stop, but she knows that he won't.  He insists on being the hero.  It's going to get him killed and she couldn't bear to see that.  The warning shot fired over their heads is horrific, and it only gets worse when the leader of the gang of robbers presses his gun against her son's throat.  

 

It's the single most terrifying moment in her entire life.  

 

Richard stays calm and faces down the fake doctor with poise and dignity.  Martha knows that he is scared.  She held her little boy through nightmares and illness, and she knows every nuance of expression that crosses his face.  

 

Every time Richard stands up to their captors and survives, Martha offers up another prayer of thanks to whoever is directing their fate.  As they stand together with hands bound, her little boy, who stands taller than she does, leans into her and cracks a joke to try and make her feel better.  Then he tells her that he loves her and she returns the sentiment.  It makes things better and worse, because they are never this honest with each other except under the most dire circumstances.  

 

The explosion rocks the foundations of the bank.  Martha huddles against Richard in the vault, shoulder to shoulder, and waits for the credits to roll.  Then the smoke begins to clear and she realises that they are alive.  

 

The police come flooding into the vault to rescue them.  They have survived.  _Richard_ has survived.  The hero makes it out alive after all, and there will be a happy ending.  Kate Beckett, wonderful, beautiful, extraordinary Kate Beckett is kneeling before Richard and-  

 

"He's not the only one here, you know."  

 

 _Oh, dammit._  

 

It's only later when she's at home in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, that she realises what she did.  She was caught up in the drama, still scared about their brush with death and anxious to be free of the restraints that chafed her wrists.  Her exhilaration at being rescued had masked the subtext of the scene playing out before her, like smoke on a camera lens.  

 

That smile on Kate's face was unlike any expression that Martha had witnessed the other woman wearing before.  What would have happened if she had let them script their own reunion, rather than ad lib-ing herself into the scene?  Did she ruin the denouement?  Did her interruption prevent the hero from getting the girl (or the boy, even, since Kate was as much the hero in this situation as Richard)?  

 

She's delighted when the door opens and Richard enters with Kate.  Martha is so delighted that she twirls the bemused detective in an enthusiastic hug, before ushering them both to the table.  

 

The direction and the script are as perfect as the acting.  Kate is smiling and happy, RIchard is joyful.  After the action, suspense and drama of the day, a lighthearted, loving coda is the perfect way to finish this particular episode of their lives.  An epilogue, perhaps, providing hope for the future, before the screen fades to black.  

 

Martha smiles as she and Alexis bring the duck a l'orange to the table.  Maybe the heroes will have their happy ending after all.  

 

 **End**

 

 _All the World's a Stage_

 _And all the men and women merely players_

Shakespeare, _As You Like It_


End file.
